Finding and Unwinding

“Barn’s burnt down — Now I can see the moon.” ~ Mizuta Masahide, Art by Alfred Stieglitz

Barns can be beautiful. You've probably seen paintings and photographs of weathered, rustic barns....barns have charm. And I learned, in a visceral way, that yes, my barn was protective, but it also has/had charm. We all are inhabitants of barns. We all are both magnificent and mad...we're human. 

My barn burned down a few weeks ago. I was in a five-day CranioSacral workshop in which twelve advanced CranioSacral therapists treated each other. My barn is my adaptive self; the self/selves that had protected me, like a barn protects its inhabitants. My barn was my self-effacement, my self-consiousness, my self-censoring.

I can see the moon now.  It feels as if the moon itself burnt down the barn with its light. The moon, in this case, is my True Self, Spirit, my Spirit. My CranioSacral colleagues allowed Spirit (SpiritMoon?) to work through them and "saw" my True Self," and that honoring and channeling healed me. I feel reborn. 

As an anonymous Craniosacral therapy client stated ...it is still beyond me how something so gentle can have such powerful results."

Come try it. 

Your Light

..what I hope you take from this is that you are already Whole, Powerful, and of the Light. 

You're an Animal!

"You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." ~ Mary Oliver

Photograph by Edward Weston

..."let the soft animal of your body love what it loves"... and it loves you! Why else would it fight infection, circulate blood, process nutrients, hold you up, and help you move. I wish that you could sense what I sense; maybe you can -- that our bodies love us like our animal friends do. Some of us are more able to feel love from and towards our pets than from our people! What if our bodies were loving us the same way our pets are? We ARE animals after all. We are made of the same stuff as our pets.

I See You

"The history of each person is contained within and expressed by their tissue, fluids, energetic qualities, and motion." ~ Dr. John Upledger, Art by Kathe Kollwitz

Dr. Upledger is my hero. He was an osteopathic physician with his feet grounded in science and his mind in the stars. He was smart enough to be a physician, open-minded enough to explore phenomenon not explored in medical school, and wise enough to know his limits. He was a visionary who understood that the mind and the body are indistinguishable, and that he was not the healer of this body/mind. It's our "Inner Physician," as he called it, or a higher power that heals. CranioSacral therapists just facilitate.

Like Dr. Upledger, I read your "history" in your tissues, fluids, and heart, gut, and mind! I listen deeply to your words and to your body and to your Inner Physician, AKA You! I hope you sense, and benefit from, the respect and caring that that deep listening entails.

Be a Tree

Trees do not preach learning and precepts. They preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. ~ Herman Hesse, Photograph by Eliot Porter

I aim to be like a tree. I don't preach; I stand-in as a rooted, Spirit-channeling accept-er and present presence. It's a kind of loving, calming neutrality that heals.

Sprouting

“I remember that in my boyhood, the bin in which we stored our winter’s supply of potatoes was in the basement, several feet below a small window. The conditions were unfavourable, but the potatoes would begin to sprout — pale, white sprouts, so unlike the healthy green shoots, they sent up when planted in the soil in the spring. But these sad, spindly sprouts would grow 2 or 3 feet in length as they reached toward the distant light of the window. The sprouts were, in their bizarre, futile growth, a sort of desperate expression of the directional tendency I have been describing. They would never become plants, never mature, never fulfill their real potential. But under the most adverse circumstances, they were striving to become. Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish. In dealing with clients whose lives have been terribly warped, in working with men and women on the backwards of state hospitals, I often think of those potato sprouts. So unfavourable have been the conditions in which these people have developed that their lives often seem abnormal, twisted, scarcely human. Yet, the directional tendency in them can be trusted. The clue to understanding their behaviour is that they are striving, in the only ways that they perceive as available to them, to move toward growth, toward becoming. To healthy persons, the results may seem bizarre and futile, but they are life’s desperate attempt to become itself.”

Carl Rogers (1980)
https://www.drmitchkeil.com/post/carl-rogers-and-potatoes/

We all are a little "warped." Our potato selves have strange sprouts. From my perspective, those sprouts are actually magnificent. They are a manifestation of the sacred Life-drive.

Carl Rogers wrote about giving clients the right conditions for optimal growth; specifically unconditional positive regard. I try to give that to clients; honoring them and their "sprouts," not judging, clipping or re-arranging. I trust that sacred Life-drive.

Celebrate the Darkness (and Light)

"Both light and shadow are the dance of Love." ~ Rumi

I've highlighted my logo photograph to illustrate the value of darkness. Aren't the shadows lovely? They draw me in. I want to dwell in them! They dance with the shell. They seem to caress the curves and lines. They define the curves and lines. Imagine this shell with no shadows.....

This is how I see people. Your shadows draw me in! I confess I want to dwell in them ;) And they are rich in potential. A person with no Shadow ....who would that be?

Enjoy the dark (and lights) of this season. And come show me your Shadow :)

Befriending Ourselves

"Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already." ~ Pema Chodron ~ Photograph by Edward Steichen

Most of us want to feel less stressed and more at peace. We've been told that meditation can help with that. I notice that "befriending who we are already" as a meditator and as a somatic therapist does bring peace and healing.
 
A founding father of CranioSacral therapy, Rollin Becker, said that that when he stopped doing anything....and just put his hands on clients and listened, treatments were more effective. I agree. Listening is powerful and transformative. It's a kind of befriending.

"...instead of struggling to erase what are referred to as negative emotions, we can learn to use them in positive ways. we could describe the principle like this: while pounding on the piano keys may produce noise, removing them doesn't exactly further the creation of music. The principles of Music and Living aren't all that difference, we think." Benjamin Hoff, from The Tao of Pooh
Art by Wassily Kandinsky

I don't believe in "negative emotions." I believe in misguided parts of ourselves. Recently I tuned into what felt like tension in my belly and I felt love! My belly was trying to give me the message "beware!" That felt like self-love, if misguided (there was no real danger). It's as if a protective entity was looking out for me. So instead of shutting out the warning, I can thank it. I can hear it and help it to harmonize with the rest of me. I can help you do that too.